Anyone who truly loves Venice, which means anyone who’s horrified by what’s become of the place at the hands of too many tourists, needs to duck into a small, smokey, shadowy bacaro for a few cicchetti. The experience might give you a modicum of faith in the human race again.
Sure, it’s easy enough to call cicchetti the Venetian version of tapas in Spain – and even easier (if wrong) to call them the city’s rendition of “happy hour” foods, created to help you order one more glass of the local wine or prosecco. The local wines are known as ombra, by the way. But in neither Spain nor TGIFridays is there such a rich and local tradition. Bacari are the places we get cicchetti, and that’s the way it’s been since the mid-1800s, when Italy was just beginning to unite as Italy and Venice was ending its long-time love affair with Austria.
According to local legend, the creator of the earliest official bacaro hailed from Puglia in the south. This is a little disheartening, since the party line in the north is that no one from the south of Italy ever amounted to much. But there it is. This guy found a place near the Rialto Bridge where he could open a retail operation, much more to sell wine than food. Yet the way to sell wine, in Venice and elsewhere, clearly involved food – you know, just little bits of food, often involving seafood and produce from the time-honored outdoor Rialto Market. There, then as now, there were fishing boats tied up selling freshly caught fish right off the ice.
The guy from Puglia ended up with quite a hit on his hands. And since crossing the Rialto Bridge is on the main (walking, never driving, of course) route between the Santa Lucia train station and the Piazza San Marco, almost every Venetian walked past every day. More than once. Cicchetti, you see, are nothing fancy, and most often don’t constitute breakfast, lunch or dinner. They are, for most Venetians, more of a snack, the kind of eating that has no calories because it doesn’t count for anything and barely has a name.
People say that first bacaro opened its doors – its windows were no doubt piled with cicchetti – in 1869. The tradition continued going strong in Venice until after World War II, when so many things about Italy changed or died. Mass tourism beginning in the 1960s was very spaghetti-centric, not to mention “full meal centric.” Americans ordered spaghetti AS a full meal, heaping bowls of the stuff, which probably hadn’t happened with Italians since ancient Roman times.
Still, some bacari stayed in business, the ones with lower rent on shady side streets, supported almost entirely by locals. In the wonderful Guido Brunetti crime novels by Donna Leon or the German TV series they inspired, Brunetti is always stopping at unnamed bacari for a quick something and a glass of light and local white wine. Usually alone, the inspector sees people he knows there, though he keeps conversation to a nod so he can focus on his case or on police problems back at the Questura. Brunetti was born in Venice. He knows where to go.
CAPESANTE ALLA VENEZIANA
In Venice, many dishes by this name are prepared with sea scallops atop cleaned scallop shells, following the lead of the French with coquilles St. Jacques. Venice, in fact, is the only Italian city that regularly features scallops in any form. Still, we really like this cicchetto of small BAY scallops served atop a brisk salad of arugula and cherry tomatoes.
1 (15-ounce can) cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
2 cups arugula leaves
2 tablespoons minced red onion
5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
1 pound small bay scallops
Juice of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon lemon zest
In a bowl, mix the beans with the tomatoes, arugula and red onion. In a small bowl, mix about ½ the olive oil with the vinegar and season to taste with salt and pepper. Sprinkle most of the dressing over the salad and toss to coat. Heat the remaining olive oil in a pan over medium heat and saute the bay scallops until golden brown, 3-4 minutes. Do not burn or overcook them. When cooked and heat is off, toss in the lemon juice and zest. Serve plates of the cannellini salad topped with scallops, drizzled with the remaining dressing. Serves 4.
